It is often desirable to obtain more rapid or accelerated photographic development during the processing of a silver halide photographic material. More rapid or accelerated photographic development is observed when the same exposure and process time provides increased photographic speed or higher Dmax. It is important that the increased photographic development should not be accompanied by an undesirable increase in the amount of fog.
In order to achieve more rapid photographic development, two approaches are possible. The first approach involves a change in the process such as an increase in the temperature of the process or a change in the composition of the developer. This approach is not often practical, especially when a photographic element has more than one light sensitive layer, and each layer responds differently to process changes. The second approach is to incorporate an additive which increases the rate of photographic development into a light-sensitive layer or an adjacent non-light-sensitive layer.
A number of additives, sometimes called development accelerators, have been described which, when added to a photographic element, will increase the rate of photographic development. Some of these additives are sulfur containing materials where the sulfur is incorporated as a thioether group in a polymer as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,046,132, 3,813,247, 3,046,134, 3,046,129, 3,057,724 and 3,165, 552; poly(alkylene oxide)s as described in Y. Inaba and A. Kumai: Photo. Sci. Eng., 17, 499 (1973; pyrazolidone/cyclodextran inclusion complexes as described in GB 2,261,740; and substituted diaminedithio-containing materials as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,655.
Certain poly(ethylene glycol)s have been described as development accelerators, particularly in black and white photographic systems in U.S. Pat. No. 3,947,273; similar polymeric compounds have also been described as aids to coating in U.S. Pat. No. 4,916,054. However, none of these patents describe poly(alkylene oxide)s which consistently show the high activity and uniformity of those of the current invention.